Franklin FTSE India ETF

FLIN

Market cap $2.73B

India's top information technology companies are expected to report another subdued quarter, as AI-driven pricing pressure, weak client spending, and global geopolitical turmoil continue to weigh on growth, nine brokerages said.

Shares of Indian banks rose more than 1% on Tuesday, making them the top-performing sectoral gainers after the Reserve Bank of India issued detailed guidelines for a concessional foreign exchange swap facility that lenders can use for overseas borrowings. The move forms part of a broader package of measures announced by the central bank to attract foreign capital into the country at a time when India's economy is facing growth and inflation challenges.

Deeply negative sentiment may be setting the stage for a recovery in Indian equities, according to Devina Mehra, Chairperson and MD of First Global. She argues that widespread pessimism and heightened focus on risks historically improve the probability of stronger market returns, while valuations are not as elevated as commonly perceived.

Every few years, the investment community rediscovers the case for international equities. A string of outperformance relative to the S&P 500 generates a wave of allocation recommendations, money flows in, and then — historically, more often than not — U.S. exceptionalism reasserts itself and the rotation reverses.

Aggressive buy-sell dollar/rupee swap operations by the Reserve Bank of India over the past 10 days have pushed foreign exchange hedging costs to their lowest levels in two months, while contributing to a recovery in the rupee ahead of a closely watched monetary policy decision. One-year hedging costs have fallen sharply from a mid-May peak of 3.50% to 2.92%.

Venugopal Garre, Managing Director and Head of India Research at Bernstein, discusses India's AI ambitions. He sees opportunities in India's capital equipment and data center developer companies as ways for investors to play the proxy AI trade.

Brokerage firm Bernstein has retained its "Neutral" stance on Indian equities and maintained its year-end Nifty 50 target of 26,000, implying an upside of around 10% from Friday's closing levels. However, the brokerage cautioned that a combination of weak macroeconomic conditions, earnings downgrades and a revival in equity issuance activity could limit gains even if markets receive a near-term boost from easing geopolitical tensions.

India is likely ​to see below-average ‌monsoon rains for the first time ​in three ​years in 2026, ⁠the government said ​on Friday, ​stoking concerns over farm output and growth ​in Asia's ​third-largest economy.

Indian stocks are on track for their first annual decline in more than a decade, according to a Reuters poll of equity analysts, as sustained foreign investor outflows and limited participation in the global artificial intelligence (AI) rally weigh heavily on market sentiment. Benchmark equity indices in the world's fastest-growing major economy have underperformed most global peers this year.

The Reserve Bank of India's three-year dollar/rupee buy-sell swap auction received strong investor demand on Tuesday, with total bids reaching nearly $10 billion, almost double the size of the auction. The central bank accepted 141 bids in the foreign exchange swap auction, while receiving a total of 254 bids worth $9.8 billion.